Hikaru's Game
by Laziness Incarnate
Summary: Hikaru and Touya attend a school for gifted youngsters to train them for an alien invasion. A school on a space station. Seriously. Spoilers for most of HnG. Now with sequels!
1. Hikaru's Game

**Author's note:**

This story is a crossover with Orson Scott Card's rather excellent science fiction novel _Ender's Game. _In the novel's timeline, this story takes place about fifteen years after the Second Invasion and in the early, experimental stages of the Battle School. Any discrepancies in regards to how the school is run can be attributed to this setting. Yep.

**Hikaru's Game**

_You need to capture the upper right star._

"I know, I know," Hikaru muttered.

"Did you say 'Go, go?'" asked Waya.

"...Yeah. Take your toon and slide along the wall on the left. Formation Delta. I'm taking my toon and we're gonna attack the upper right star, Formation Gamma. I need you to give us cover fire, don't be too obvious about it. We want to flank them."

"Don't be too obvious yourself," said Waya with a grin, before turning to his soldiers and shouting "Go go go!" for real. Ten boys including Waya launched themselves from the gate, sliding along the wall in zero gravity conditions with the ease of long practice. They were putting themselves in an area of the Battle Room that contained no stars and therefore no cover, but that was the idea.

Hikaru's best trait as a commander was his willingness to make sacrifices, and Waya's best trait as a toon leader was his willingness to be the sacrifice. The battle went smoothly once the upper right star was taken, though Waya's toon was almost completely frozen as usual. 

The enemy commander's eyes were hateful as he bowed to the victor.

"Thanks for the game," he said.

"Thank you," Hikaru replied.

As he turned to leave, he could still feel the other boy's eyes on his back. One more person who hated him.

"Another day, another battle for Tiger Army, hey?" said Waya.

"Yeah," Hikaru replied.

_It is the nature of this game_, said Sai.

* * *

"Lunch, lunch! Hurry up!" Hikaru called out.

"Don't get your flash suit in a knot, commander," said Waya, laughing as he pulled himself away from his toon.

It was on the tip of Hikaru's tongue to tell Waya not to get so chummy with his subordinates. But who was he to talk?

They got in the lunch line and started going over the game they had just won.

"Pretty good follow-through on the flanking manoeuver, Shindou. You got a little birdie in your ear telling you what to do?"

"I just cheat is all."

"Well, keep at it. We're not just scraping by anymore. Big wins. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get a recording of our games or something so we could show it off?"

_Kifu_, thought Hikaru, but aloud he said, "You just like watching yourself doing it."

A boy who was passing by gave him a disdainful look, and by the time Hikaru realized it was Touya Akira the other boy had already moved away. 

Waya was glaring at Touya's back. "What a freak. Have you ever met anyone as arrogant as that?"

"I think he just hates me."

"I admit that he does hate your guts. What did you do to him anyway? It's not like you've ever beaten him."

"Thanks for the reminder. You want lunch now?"

"After you tell me why Touya hates you. You're the only one who's managed to piss Mr. Ice Cube off that much, you're like a local legend."

"Shut up."

"Come on."

"Waya," said Hikaru shortly, "I don't have to answer any of this."

Waya's hands loosened their grip on his tray for a moment, then tightened again.

"You just pulled rank on me, didn't you."

They finally got their meal and sat down together at their usual table. It was an unspoken rule in Tiger Army that the commander and his second were to be left alone at mealtimes.

"I'm going to be a commander before next year," said Waya grimly as he stabbed a piece of macaroni with his fork. "Even if it kills me."

"Or kills me," added Hikaru.

Waya didn't even crack a smile. "Our next battle is against Wolf."

"Yeah."

"Wolf Army. This is my chance. Isumi's graduating soon so they'll need a new commander to replace him. I won't hold back when we fight him, even if it's his last game. Even if it's Isumi-san."

"I don't think Isumi would want it any other way," Hikaru replied. He wondered if Waya realized that he'd slipped from English into Japanese."

After lunch, Waya took off for the exercise room and Hikaru went back to the Tiger Army bunks, where a message was waiting for him on his desk.

_Don't hold back. Please.   
--Isumi_

Hikaru thought of Waya, of the unnatural seriousness etched into his features. So Hikaru promised to himself: I won't hold back. And I won't lose.

* * *

He was losing. He was losing too many men, his formation in the center was not going to hold, he could feel defeat edging into his vision. To make things worse Waya's toon had advanced too far into Wolf Army's territory, they were trapped, Hikaru had no one to turn to.

Sai, he implored, Sai, tell me what to do.

_Adapt,_ said Sai.

Adapt?

Sai said nothing more.

So Hikaru did the first thing he thought of and threw his flash gun at Waya. It floated in an impossibly straight line through the zero-grav air right at the other boy's head. No one seemed to believe what he was doing, because no one grabbed the gun as it sailed by. It was ridiculous.

"Waya!" he yelled.

Waya looked up just in time to grab the gun.

"What is this for?" he yelled back.

"Kamikaze! Go!"

It wasn't the name of any formation they'd practiced. Waya was giving him a blank look, even some the enemy soldiers were giving him a blank look. Most of them probably didn't even know what the word meant. Then Waya started barking orders and, as one, Toon A launched themselves from the star they'd been cornered behind, screaming all the way and flash guns flashing like an insane light show.

But now Hikaru didn't have a gun. He turned to one of his soldiers from Toon C and said, "Give me your flash suit."

"W-what?"

"Just do it!"

The boy stripped down and handed his suit over. He was naked underneath, but Hikaru could hardly worry about that right now. He curled his body up as small as he could, covered himself with the second flash suit, and kicked off hard and fast. The extra flash suit was just enough to protect his torso and his gun arm. After a moment his left leg was shot and frozen, but that didn't really matter.

Hikaru's target was an isolated Wolf soldier whose back was turned. He reached him in one and a half seconds of agonizingly long airtime.

Thankfully, the enemy soldier's attention was elsewhere--he was frantically firing at Waya's toon--so it wasn't hard for Hikaru to grab him from behind and squeeze the boy's right wrist until he cried out and released his flash gun. It crossed Hikaru's mind that if this were a movie he would take the enemy hostage, but this wasn't a movie, and no one else in the room would get the reference anyway. He grabbed the gun and froze the other boy quickly.

By now there were more than a few Wolf soldiers firing on him, but Hikaru scrunched up behind his frozen captive and covered his other side with the flash suit. He'd chosen a big soldier on purpose, but his shield wouldn't last forever. He had to make use of his remaining soldiers.

Confusion--that was the key to this battle. Hold this Wolf soldier as a shield, make the enemy fire at their own men, make them feel like they were being attacked from everywhere at once. Hikaru understood that this would unravel Isumi's careful formations more than anything else. The enemy's attention was on him now after that dumb stunt, so...

"Toon B! Kamikaze! Go!" Hikaru yelled. Then he took his own advice and threw off the extra flash suit, freeing up a hand, and stuck his gun through his captive's armpit so he could start firing. His soldiers--who had been getting picked off as they cowered behind their stars--were suddenly shooting from all the impossible directions that a zero gravity room would allow. A few of them followed Hikaru's example and grabbed disabled Wolf soldiers as shields.

They won, somehow. Toon A and B were completely frozen at the end of the battle, but by then they had taken down Wolf's core defenses. Waya--who was the best shot in Tiger Army, and apparently ambidextrous--personally froze Wolf Army's commander less than a minute after launching Toon A's attack.

"Chop off the head," muttered one of Hikaru's men.

"And the army shall fall," added another.

After the game, Hikaru couldn't be sure whether Isumi's expression was one of shock or disappointment or relief, because Hikaru refused to look.

* * *

Hikaru had hoped not to run into Isumi.

"Hello, Shindou."

Isumi's smile was as warm as ever. He was seated before a chess board, though he had no opponent. He was losing.

"Hey." Hikaru tried to sound friendly. "Were you playing someone?"

Isumi looked down at the board. "No, I'm just recreating a game. I'm not very good at chess, but it's fun to look at these things."

"Ah."

"Shindou, I wanted to talk to you about our game yesterday."

Hikaru didn't have to say anything; he knew he had a guilty look on his face.

"I want to thank you," said Isumi. "You didn't hold back."

"Consider it your graduation present."

"It was a good present."

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Hikaru was surprised to find the pause was not an awkward one.

"So do you know where you're being stationed? Tactical School? Navigation?" he finally asked.

Isumi folded his hands together and looked downwards, as if studying the board.

"Not yet. But if I have to guess, I think they'll be sending me home. I'm not cut out for this. And I think the teachers know what I think of them and their school," Isumi said wryly.

"I've never heard you say anything about that."

"You've never heard it because I've never said it aloud before. Hikaru, haven't you ever wondered what we're doing here? We're children playing war games on a space station. We shoot at each other and hate each other and pretend we know what we're doing, but really we're all scared because no one knows and no one wants to admit it."

Isumi was looking at the chess board again and fingering one of the black pawns. Hikaru didn't bother pointing out the blatant symbolism.

"It's to win the war," said Hikaru simply. "So we'll be ready to command the fleet if the earth ever gets attacked again."

Isumi gave him a sympathetic look.

"You still believe we're saving the world, huh?"

"I do."

"Well, maybe you're right. But I don't believe in it anymore."

"So why don't you quit?"

"Because I love this," answered Isumi with a crooked smile. "Because I can't give up the game. It's funny, don't you think, that the teachers made Battle School like this just because we're kids. As if we wouldn't play otherwise."

Hikaru thought of Touya Kouyo, and of Sai. "You'd be surprised at the games adults will play."

"We'll never grow up, will we."

"Peter Pan syndrome for all of us Battle School kids."

"...Who's Peter Pan?"

Hikaru stared. "How can you not know who Peter Pan is?"

"I entered Battle School when I was seven. There's a lot of things I don't know."

"Sorry. I forgot."

Isumi had a thoughtful look on his face. "I never asked you about it before, but you're really strange, Hikaru. How old were you when you came here?"

Hikaru hesitated for a moment, then said, "Ten."

"Ten."

"Yeah."

"That's old."

"I know."

"You probably remember a lot things about your home then. Your family." Isumi looked wistful. "I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse."

"A blessing. Remembering the past is a blessing." Hikaru's voice was surprisingly fierce.

"The past. We never talk about it here. Why is that? We weren't born out of nothing."

"Because everyone here is trying to act like an adult, and no one wants to be seen crying for their mommy."

"It's not right."

Hikaru thought about it, how know one seemed to talk about anything but the game around here, and said, "Isumi, my graduation present for you sucked."

"I didn't think so."

"It did suck. So I'm going to give you something else. I'm going to tell you why Touya hates me so much."

Isumi looked up in amazement.

"You can't tell anyone," Hikaru added. "Not even Waya. Especially not Waya. It's actually a pretty boring story anyway."

"I promise," said Isumi seriously.

"Thank you. Okay." Hikaru took a deep breath. "When I first met him, Touya I mean, back when I'd just started at Battle School, I tried to give him a message from his dad. His dad's a famous Go player. You know what Go is, right?"

"Yes. My dad played it. He wanted me to learn it too, but then I got taken away..."

"I played a bit of Go before I came to Battle School." Hikaru felt odd revealing that much. Isumi was right, no one ever spoke about the past in Battle School.

"So it's true then, the rumour about the teachers 'discovering' you because of some brilliant game you played?" Isumi laughed.

_Not quite_.

"It wasn't me playing," said Hikaru. "But that's not important. The thing is, Touya Kouyo asked me to give his son this message: 'When we meet again, it would please me greatly if we might play a game together.'"

Isumi frowned. "That's a cold message for a father to give to a son he hasn't seen in years."

_He doesn't understand our world_, said Sai, as Hikaru calmed his temper.

Isumi must have seen that he'd raised Hikaru's hackles, because he quickly said, "Why did Touya get mad about that?"

"I don't know. When I gave him the message the only thing he said was that Go is for children and old fools."

"This place makes people cruel."

"It does," said Hikaru, thinking of the Wolf soldier he'd injured yesterday.

But Isumi wasn't looking at him anymore. He was looking over Hikaru's shoulder with solemn eyes, so Hikaru turned to look too.

It was a teacher. "Time to go, Shinichiro." 

As Isumi stood, Hikaru said, "Wait. Wait, you have to say goodbye to your army, and Waya."

"It's better this way," Isumi said, sounding very adult. "Goodbye, Shindou. I hope I'll see you again."

"Where are you stationing him?" Hikaru demanded.

"Classified," said the teacher as he took Isumi by the elbow and steered him away.

They were gone by the time Hikaru realized he hadn't said goodbye in return.

* * *

When Hikaru got back to his room, there was something distinctly missing from Tiger Army.

"Where's Waya?" he asked.

The leader of Toon B looked up from his desk.

"You didn't know? The teachers took him away."

"Probably promoted," someone added.

"They also dropped this off," said the toon leader, handing Hikaru a sheet of paper.

_EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY_

Commanders assigned new sleeping quarters. See attached map for room assignments.

Rank of Second In Command abolished due to complaints of unequal treatment of toon leaders. Seconds required to relinquish all marks of insignia to assigned teacher.

"Sucks that there's no second rank anymore, huh? Though it doesn't really matter to us, with Waya gone. But we do need a new toon leader." The boy gave Hikaru a hopeful look.

"Pretty sweet that you get your own room now," said another Tiger soldier. "And I hear they're building a mess hall just for the commanders too."

"Pretty sweet," Hikaru replied dully.

He went to his new room, which was indeed very large and private and empty of noise or clutter. Hikaru sat down on his bunk and felt very alone.

_No path should be walked alone,_ said Sai.

As he lay down to sleep that night, Hikaru thought of Touya Kouyo.

* * *

When Hikaru ran into Waya the next day, he was wearing the Wolf insignia on his flash suit and a commander's pin on his collar.

"Hey. Congrats."

"Thanks."

"You're happy, right?"

Waya managed a crooked smile. "I didn't think I'd get my own room," he said.

"That's something new."

"Duh."

The banter between them wasn't quite as smooth anymore.

"Who's your first opponent?"

Waya stared at him. "You mean you haven't looked at the new schedule yet?"

"That's where I was headed," Hikaru replied, and had a sudden fear. "It's not Tiger you're fighting first, is it?"

"No. It's Phoenix."

Ah. Of all the bad luck. Touya Akira's army.

"I think they like to keep all us Japanese guys together," said Waya, attempting a bit of humour.

"Never cry, Wolf."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"You're up against Phoenix in a few weeks too, Shindou."

Hikaru sucked in a breath. "Good luck to both of us then."

"Much as I hate to admit it, we need it against that guy."

* * *

Waya lost his first battle, predictably. Hikaru wanted to say something comforting, even just send him a message, but it didn't seem right to do so.

_Sometimes you have to leave people behind_, said Sai.

"You're right, I don't have time to worry about Waya," Hikaru answered. "It's my turn to play Touya."

When the day finally arrived, he felt calm. He stepped into the Battle Room, his army behind him, and took stock of the playing field.

There were only nine stars. They were laid out in a perfectly symmetrical square of three by three, four corners and four sides and one star in the exact centre of the room.

"Why do I feel like I've been preparing for this game my whole life?" Hikaru asked no one in particular, and then stopped wondering because Touya was _there_.

They shook hands.

"Please, let's play a good game."

"Please."

"Not like your game against Wolf," Touya added softly.

There were a hundred things Hikaru could have said. _If you are going to win, win thoroughly. It is the nature of this game. Adapt. There is beauty in battle. Don't be soft or you will lose. Sometimes you have to leave people behind. Cruelty can be a kindness. No path should be walked alone._

Sai had told him all these things at one time or another.

But Hikaru chose to say nothing, and returned to his army as Touya returned to his own.

_Each and every step leads to the next_.

"Yes," said Hikaru. All the pieces were assembled. Then: "Here I go."

* * *

The game was hardly over and people were already whispering as he passed them in the halls.

_You played very well today_, said Sai.

Hikaru didn't know what to think.

"It was so easy," he murmured to Sai. "Almost as if he gave up. It wasn't what I wanted."

_You played very well today._

He didn't feel strong, and he was tired of trying to look strong. He was exhausted.

When he got back to his room and to his desk, there was a message waiting for him.

_Congratulations. I guess you can win without me.  
--W_

Hikaru was too tired for this. "Not the Hand of God at all," he said as he collapsed on his bed.

* * *

He nearly had a heart attack when he opened his door the next morning to find a goban and two go-ke on the floor outside his room.

It looked ancient and worn, well-loved and completely out of place among the clean grey edges of the corridor. It wasn't supposed to be there.

"It's kaya wood. The real thing, " Hikaru noted as he picked up the goban. It was reassuringly heavy.

Touya, he thought.

Hikaru had no idea where to find him, but he walked until he found the red-black-red pattern along the wall that led to Phoenix Army's quarters. He met a group of Touya's soldiers who were on their way to breakfast; they eyed the goban he carried with suspicion.

"Where's your commander?" he asked, forestalling their questions, and they warily pointed the way to Touya's room. "He hasn't come out yet today," one of them said with a shrug.

Touya didn't look happy to see him.

"You won," Touya said, clutching at the frame of his door with white knuckles. "You won, so get out and don't ever talk to me."

If Touya was not going to bother with hellos, neither was Hikaru. "You left this in front of my door. I'm just returning it."

"I don't want it," Touya replied, but Hikaru was already pushing his way into the room, the goban held in front of him like a tea tray with the two go-ke balanced on top. Touya moved aside, glaring, and shut the door after Hikaru.

Hikaru set the goban down reverently on a table and turned to face Touya.

"I've been chasing after you for a long time, and now I've caught you. I won yesterday. You're going to talk to me," he said firmly. 

"You have no right--"

"You left this goban outside my room. Tell me why."

"I don't want it anymore."

"But you've kept this goban a secret for years, haven't you? Ever since you entered Battle School. You're the only person who got to bring something into the school with you--I guess the teachers let you do it because you're special, huh? Meijin's son and all, certified genius. They had such high hopes for you."

"Shut up. My father--" Touya's voice faltered for a moment. "He told the teachers he wouldn't let me come to Battle School unless I could take this goban with me."

"And now you're getting rid of it."

"I won't let them do me any favours. I'm not going to play their games anymore." Touya's eyes were feverish. "The teachers are the enemy, don't you see? They brought us here and make us fight each other, make us care about nothing but the game, but now I'm tired of it. I'm tired of hating each other. I won't give another minute of my life to this stupid, stupid game."

Hikaru thought of what Isumi had said the day before. _Haven't you ever wondered what we're doing here?_

"All these changes to the school lately," Touya continued. "The way they isolate the commanders. We're just an experiment to them. They don't care about us, they don't care whether we're happy or not, as long as we keep playing their game."

"You're wrong," said Hikaru."This school wasn't created just to make us miserable. They have a purpose. Can't you feel it? We're moving toward something, trying to accomplish something. Maybe not for ourselves, but for something in the future."

"You sound like my father," said Touya with a harsh laugh. "You sound the way he did when he spoke of the Hand of God."

Hikaru felt Sai's heart jump.

Touya must have misunderstood the stricken look on Hikaru's face for confusion, because he said, "The Hand of God...you must have heard of it. It's a term in Go --no, not a term, more of a philosophy, or maybe a myth--it's the perfect hand, the perfect game of Go."

Touya halted, and Hikaru filled in the blank. "You once believed in it, didn't you."

It was remarkable to see Touya's gaze waver for once.

"A game for children and old fools," Hikaru continued, his voice soft.

Touya looked away.

"I apologize for my behaviour back then. I didn't want to look bad in front of my army."

"I was a stupid overgrown launchie and you were a commander. It's understandable."

"I couldn't understand why they'd let you into Battle School when you were ten. I knew you had to be really special or an idiot."

"Hey."

"And then you spoke to me of Go, and my father. I couldn't bear it. Because..."

"Because you gave up Go."

"My father is still strong, right?" asked Touya. "You played against him and saw his strength, right?"

"I wasn't good enough of a player to judge."

"But you were good enough to be playing people like my father."

"Not me," said Hikaru quietly. Then he lied a little. "He only noticed me because I was going to Battle School. He wanted me to give his son a message."

Touya's breath hitched. "It's all games. It's all for fools."

"But I love the game. And I love Go. I guess I'm a fool."

"I don't understand you. How can you--you were older than I was when you were taken away. You must have understood what they were going to do to you. I was only six years old when I was taken, I didn't understand anything."

"I _was_ older, and I _was_ smarter than you. I knew exactly what I was getting into. I came here so I could reach the Hand of God."

Impossibly, Touya laughed.

"The Hand of God! There's nothing here of that."

"There is. To be able to save the world, the way Mazer Rackham did--"

"He got lucky."

"He got brilliantly lucky. He was trying to survive and trying to win and he had to kill. But he was desperate and he _did what no one else could_. I've studied his battles, what I could find of them. He was a genius. He touched it, he came closer to the Hand of God than anyone ever has before."

The look Touya gave him was incredulous.

"You think you can actually do it. You think you can save the world."

"Maybe I'll command the starship that saves us. Maybe I'll fire the shot that wins the war."

Touya would not meet his eyes, would not meet his ideals.

"Who taught you Go?" he asked instead.

If Hikaru was surprised by the question, he tried not to show it. "A...friend taught me. He was very kind to me. He's gone now."

"Gone?"

"I wasn't a very good friend to him," said Hikaru with a slight twist of his mouth. 

Touya chose not to open that wound. "Was he strong?"

"He was very, very strong."

Touya's hands were clasped very tightly. "I stopped believing in it. I won't believe in anything the adults tell me. Children and old fools. But what does it matter? If they have it their way I'll be put on a starship and I'll never see my father again."

Hikaru thought of Sai, of the grave he had never been able to find in Innoshima.

"He's still with you," he said quietly. "In your Go."

"I don't play anymore. I don't remember how."

"We're kids. Genius kids, but still kids. We play games."

"I don't want to play anymore."

"You were supposed to become the strongest Go player of your generation. Maybe you were supposed to become the best player the world has ever seen." _Maybe you were supposed to find the Hand of God with me,_ Hikaru did not say.

"It never happened and it never will," Touya answered. "My father is dead to me."

Hikaru shook his head.

"One day you'll meet him again. It might be a long way away, but you can't just forget the past. One day, no matter what, you'll meet him again. Even if you get put on a starship and you fly away from the earth forever...even so, you'll see him again."

His voice was earnest, but also so sad that Touya could not help but listen.

"You really believe it," he said softly.

"I do. I know...I know I'll see my friend again. Even now, sometimes I feel as if I can still hear his voice. And I know you'll meet your father."

Touya buried his face in his hands.

"I can't face him."

"But you want to see him again, don't you."

Touya lifted his eyes and looked out his window at the stars, then at Hikaru, who had seated himself at the goban.

"This really is a nice goban," Hikaru murmured, running his hands over the surface.

Touya sat down opposite him. He looked a little lost as he opened up one of the go-ke. Then he said: "'When we meet again, it would please me greatly if we might play a game together.'" 

"Please."

"Please."

"You're black," Hikaru noted.

"I think that means...I go first?"

Touya placed a stone.

-End-

* * *

Author's Notes:

Anyone who's made it far enough to read this, I congratulate you. Especially if you haven't read Ender's Game before, in which case this story must have been heckuva confusing. I tried to make it understandable for the uninitiated, but I'm not sure I succeeded.

I never meant for this story to be this long. The only reason I wrote it was because I liked the thought of the stars in the Battle Room being like the stars on a goban. It was supposed to just be a little taste of what a crossover between HnG and Ender's Game would be like. Stupid long-winded conversations.

Isumi and Waya took on Dink and Petra's roles respectively, although they've been softened. Hikaru and Touya are both kind of based on Ender himself, but not really. If anyone cares to know, my favourite character from Ender's Game is Dink and my favourite HnG character is Waya.

Thanks for reading! Would appreciate any comments or criticisms, especially from those who are unfamiliar with Ender's Game.


	2. Wolf Pack

**Wolf Pack  
**

One day, Waya reflected sourly, the teachers were going to realize that an internal messaging system that amounted to nothing more than shoving a tiny piece of paper under a student's door and hoping he managed to blunder into it as he zombied his way out the room at 6am in the morning was actually pretty fucking anachronistic on a state-of-the-art space station with gravity manipulation and holographic video games and, you know, flush toilets.

"So my toon leader has been transferred," Waya chastised his three remaining toon leaders, "and no one bothered to come tell me until thirty minutes before battle?"

He got a round of sullen looks. No doubt they were all thinking that his inability to blunder into small pieces of paper in the dark at 6am made him a bad commander. "Not transferred. Promoted," corrected the leader of Toon B. "Got her own army now."

Even better. His top-performing toon leader was now his enemy. He should have seen it coming; the teachers in charge of the army rosters were pretty consistent when it came to being assholes.

But he couldn't show weakness in front of his army.

"Who did we get as her replacement?" he asked.

They pointed him toward a short boy, probably fresh out of a Launch group, with a bowl of limp strands for a haircut and a pair of thick glass circles in front of his eyes (Glasses! Who wore glasses anymore?). The kid was sitting on a bottom bunk at the back of the room - and he really was just sitting there, not talking to anyone, not unpacking his things, just watching with small, dispassionate eyes as Waya left his toon leaders and approached the bed.

"Ochi, right?" Waya wondered briefly what kanji the boy used to write his name. "Welcome to Wolf Army." He stuck out his hand.

Ochi didn't take it.

"You're not very good at the whole commander thing, are you?" the boy said. "If you knew what you were doing, you'd make me go to you, not the other way around."

The other kids around them suddenly stopped pretending they hadn't been listening. The room went deadly quiet.

Waya's hand dropped. He felt it forming a fist at his side and had to tell himself not to do anything rash. "You have five seconds to apologize."

Ochi's smile didn't reach his beady little eyes.

"Why are you even talking to me right now? You should be figuring out your battle plan, now that your top toon leader is gone."

Waya did something rash.

Behind those thick lenses Ochi's eyes widened noticeably as he was hauled off the mattress, collar first. Waya let the smaller boy hang there for a moment before shoving him backward roughly into the wall.

He was vaguely aware of his entire army's eyes on him.

Ochi pushed himself upward on his elbows. In the dim light under the top bunk his face was barely visible. There was genuine fear there - good. Anger, too. Even better.

Waya felt a hand on his arm.

"Hey," said the owner of the hand, one of the kids from Toon A. "He's smaller than you."

"I don't tolerate insubordination," Waya growled. "Especially from pissant Launchies who think they're in the big leagues."

"He's not from the Launchies," someone else said from a nearby bunk. "He's transferred from Condor."

Waya let out a bark of surprised laughter. "Seriously? Could have fooled me. What are they feeding those dumb birds nowadays?"

That got him a few nervous giggles from the peanut gallery, but it was all from the younger, more fearful ones. None of the older kids laughed.

Waya turned away from the boy on the bunk. He had liked the sound the body made when it hit the wall. He wanted to hear it again.

He told his racing heart to still itself. Tried to smooth the anger from his face. Held his head up like a commander should.

"We have a battle to plan," he said.

But when he looked to his toon leaders they gazed back at him with sullen, watchful eyes.

Wolf eyes.

- 0 - 0 -

The last moments before battle were always the hardest.

The battle against Ferret was an important one, Wolf Army knew. Not because Ferret was any good. Ferret was terrible.

Just like Wolf.

Ferret was the only kind of army they could possibly beat.

The thing was, Wolf's record had been decent two months ago, before Waya took command. Their previous commander - Isumi, he could say the name at least in his head, damn it - Isumi had been a very different kind of leader from Waya. More careful, more methodical. Waya just didn't know what to do with the kind of army Isumi had created, and it showed in the standings.

It didn't help that he'd been Isumi's friend. His soldiers probably thought he was a back-stabbing opportunist. Waya sometimes thought he was one too.

He looked into the faces of his army. None of them trusted him. They were all waiting for him to make a mistake so they could tear him apart.

Shut up, Waya, he told himself. Your enemy is over there, beyond the gate. Just win and they'll fall in line.

He raised his gun high. Forty eyes followed the motion.

Thirty seconds until the gate opened. (thirty of those eyes dull with resentment.)

Ten seconds. (ten eyes flashing with challenge.)

Zero. (zero wolf eyes bright with loyalty.)

The gate opened.

- 0 - 0 -

Ochi's beady eyes were full of contempt.

"Why are you personally leading Toon A?" he muttered as Waya surveyed the Battle Room's star formation. "And why do I have to be in Toon A?"

"Quiet down," Waya hissed, "before I shut you up myself."

"Who's watching the overall battle?"

Thankfully, the other boys in Toon A were on his side on this one. Ochi was that annoying.

"Just shut up for once."

"You wanna give away our position, pissant?"

"Nobody shoots better'n our commander, he better in a toon than back of the room."

Waya tried not to let the surprise show.

Don't get carried away, he told himself. It was just one little comment.

But the battle adrenaline was pumping in his veins, and Waya felt for a moment like he was in Tiger again, a toon leader with a bunch of giddy, reckless kids ready to follow him anywhere. He just had forty kids now instead of nine.

"Toon A, give me formation twelve, you know the one. We're taking the middle star cluster," he ordered. "Toon B, take the nine o'clock star. C, three o'clock. D, hold back for one minute then wall slide up the ceiling, twelve o'clock. Toon leaders choose the formations. Got it?"

They got it.

Except Ochi.

"I don't know formation twelve," he complained.

"Then you stick with me," Waya told him. "You my shield."

When he grabbed Ochi's collar this time, his toon laughed. Waya had a good feeling about the battle ahead.

"You're making a mistake." The boy's eyes looked a little wild.

"You stay still and be a good little shield. But not _too_ little. You gotta cover me. Toon A, ready?"

The five Toon A kids in front made a kind of staggered wall - they would provide cover for the boys in the back, who would exit the gate a moment after them, and at a faster speed. By the time the back soldiers caught up to the "wall" a lot of the frontrunners would be frozen or disabled - but the frozen soldiers could be used as shields, and the whole thing was meant to be a distraction from the other toons anyway, who would be taking the side stars.

Waya liked using distractions. He'd learned all about them from Shindou, his previous commander.

"Vanguard, go!" he shouted.

Four boys launched themselves out the gate in near-perfect synchrony, but Ochi had to be shoved.

"Rear, go!" Waya pushed himself out the gate with the rest of his Toon A boys, each aiming to rendezvous with one of the frontline soldiers. He was throwing himself right out there and hoping his toon leaders would be fine without him. He felt their eyes following him as they began setting up their own formations.

Straight ahead of him, Ochi was flying - more like flailing - and shooting his flash gun toward Ferret's side of the Battle Room. That was about all that could be said about the kid's aim. This was what the teachers had given him in exchange for a toon leader?

Waya would have to make up for the little idiot. He aimed carefully and fired over Ochi's shoulder, managing to freeze an enemy soldier's gun arm. One down, forty to go. Waya grinned. No one ever doubted he was a good shot.

But the enemy were firing on the shield soldiers with more accuracy than Waya liked. Since when had Ferret been any good at shooting? Worse, Ferret had some good star clusters pretty close to its gate that they were using for cover.

Not a very fair battlefield, Waya realized. It had been hard to gauge the distances properly from the back of the room. Maybe he shouldn't have gone for the middle so early.

_Corners, then sides, then middle_, he remembered Shindou saying once. _That's the safe way, if you like safe._

Damn it, damn it.

It was too late now to change the plan. He'd have to trust his toon leaders to take the corners and sides while he distracted the enemy in the middle.

A stray shot nearly got him from below. The shields, separated from the shielded in this first stage, actually weren't much good when the enemy could attack from any angle. The gap between the shields and the shielded was supposed to lure out the enemy, give the back row a chance to assess the battlefield, but the gap was a liability too. He just hadn't realized how big a liability.

Fly faster, he told himself, as if he could tell inertia what to do.

And then he was at Ochi's back. Somehow, the kid was still unfrozen. The enemy had probably seen what a bad soldier he was and ignored him, concentrating on the other shield soldiers. His shoulders were stiff and raised up practically around his ears as he fired away.

Waya put his hand on one of those shoulders.

"Eyah!" Ochi half-screamed, bringing his gun around and shooting it directly at Waya's face.

The commander of Ferret told him later, during the victory ceremony, as Waya bowed over his hand, that he wished he'd had a camera to take a picture of Waya's frozen expression.

"You looked like a big loser," he said.

- 0 - 0 -

At least his army had someone other than their commander to blame this time.

"Pissant," they jeered quietly. Apparently the name had stuck. "Piss ant."

Ochi wasn't fighting back.

"You don't see so good, huh? Need new glasses?"

"Maybe we do you a favour, break those old ones."

There was a lot of shoving going on back there. He heard the impact of a body hitting the wall, a muffled cry of pain. It was none of his business. He'd be doing the same thing if they weren't doing it for him.

Waya kept walking, and his Wolves followed.

Back in the barracks, he kept the post-battle speeches strictly business - praise for things they'd done well, criticism for things they needed to improve on. He didn't mention Ochi's slip-up. He didn't need to. He knew what would happen as soon as he left the room. And they knew he knew, so it was like he was giving his implicit permission.

Maybe they'd hurt him enough to put him in the infirmary. Enough to put him out of his army, or any army, for a long time. And Waya was going to let them.

The thought didn't make him as happy as he thought it would.

"Ochi," he said. He didn't recognize his voice. It sounded cold, like he was still frozen from battle. "Come with me."

He saw his soldiers freeze too. Some of them were angry. But most of them just looked surprised.

Ochi followed Waya to his room silently. The door shut behind them, sealing them in all alone together, and still the boy said nothing.

Waya couldn't believe how calm he felt. Must have been all that time he'd spent floating around the Battle Room, watching his army lose without him. I can actually see the battle like this, he'd thought.

But Ochi was still an idiot.

"You are not any kind of soldier," Waya said bluntly. "You can't shoot. You can't launch. You can't even float without tensing up so bad you don't know friend from enemy."

Ochi had the decency to look chagrined at that. But he didn't apologize. "You sent me out without telling me what I was supposed to be doing."

"You fired in the completely wrong direction. You fired on your commander. Other commanders would give you a black eye for that."

"You shouldn't have been in the middle of the battle to begin with."

Then Waya did punch Ochi, but it was in the abdomen, not in the head where he could do more damage. Ochi made a _whiffing_ sound and keeled over, clutching at his midsection.

Waya withdrew his fist slowly, wonderingly. He'd never planned to hit someone before. He'd always just done it.

"I could have let you stay in that room with thirty-eight boys and two girls who want to rip your throat out," he said, voice oddly calm. "Maybe I should have let them, it would have good for morale. But I decided even you don't deserve that. You can't help being incompetent."

_That_ got a reaction. Ochi struggled to his feet, clearly in pain but with a kind of pathetic pride.

"You think this is anything new to me? My last commander called me incompetent too! You think I want to be picked on just for being short and not good at shooting a stupid toy gun? You think I'm not trying?"

He was practically yelling.

"What does athleticism have to do with anything? They told me I had to come here because I'm smart! Use your brains to help save the human race, right? I get near top grades in most of my classes and none of it matters...damn it, none of it matters, because I'm the worst soldier in the school. _Incompetent_."

He deflated suddenly, like Waya's punch had caught up to him, all the hot air knocked out of him. He didn't sit down or start bawling or anything, but his shoulders dropped and the fire in his eyes flickered out.

It was weird. Waya should have been happy to finally beat the kid down. Ochi'd been doing nothing but mouthing off since he'd showed up with his ugly mug and uglier personality, but...

"Don't go back to the barracks, and don't go to dinner," Waya said suddenly. "Avoid the Wolf bathrooms. Go to the other side of the school if you have to. Sleep in the infirmary tonight."

Ochi looked up, like he'd forgotten Waya was there. "What should I say when they ask me what I have?" he asked, voice flat.

"Tell them you have a stomachache," Waya replied. It would be true enough, after that punch.

Ochi nodded, still with that dead look in his eyes. He pushed the button to open the door and stepped out, not looking back.

Once he was alone, Waya sat down heavily on his bed. That had been...it had taken more energy than he'd have thought. He would have to go to dinner soon - he was not looking forward to the jeers he would face in the commander's mess - but he had some research to do before that.

He found his desk on his bedside table and turned it on.

Being good with computers was a handy thing in Battle School. He'd cracked the teachers' encryption system, or the part of it they allowed to be cracked, when he'd first gotten his commander's account. He had way more intel than someone like Shindou did, he was sure.

See, Ochi, brains _do_ matter.

So I'm sure you won't mind me opening your file.

The first thing he saw was lots of reports from teachers about Ochi's problems integrating with his fellow soldiers, going all the way back to the shuttle ride from Earth to Battle School. So his bad personality wasn't a new thing.

Somehow Waya wasn't surprised to learn that Ochi was from a very old, very rich family. What was it he'd said? _If you knew what you were doing, you'd make me go to you, not the other way around._ Was that the kind of thing you learned growing up with servants waiting on you? Was that the kind of thing a commander should just know?

Waya was starting to feel uncomfortable about his snooping. But he couldn't stop now.

Ochi's last army was Condor, which was doing well in the standings. What was the reason for his transfer?

Probably got kicked out for not shutting his mouth, Waya figured.

Blah blah blah good grades blah blah still can't aim or launch himself properly blah blah blah.

_Student request for transfer to Wolf._

Wait. What?

Waya read it again, not sure if he'd understood correctly. Ochi had _asked_ to be placed in Wolf? Why would anyone leave an army that was in the top ten to come to an army that was in the bottom ten?

_My last commander called me incompetent too!_

Well, clearly he didn't get along with the commander of Condor. But that still didn't explain why _Wolf_. The teachers hadn't left any notes to answer that particular question.

Maybe he'd wanted to come to an army that wasn't already filled up with excellent soldiers, where he would have a chance, any kind of chance, to rise in the ranks? Did he think he could, what, fix Waya's army? That would explain all the "helpful" comments he'd made today.

But then Waya remembered the terrible hopelessness he'd seen in Ochi's eyes as he'd left the room.

No, he didn't come here to be a schemer. He was more desperate than that.

Think, Waya.

Isumi used to tell him he needed to think more. Think about his army, as people and not just as soldiers. Think about the whole game, not only the Battle Room. Why we're here, who brought us here. Isumi would whisper it, like it was forbidden knowledge to even ask these questions.

Waya still felt weird, remembering Isumi-san's voice, his kindnesses. When I was second in command of Tiger Army, Isumi-san, I forgot how to be your friend. You were the enemy. I could hardly remember I was just playing a game.

So...maybe I owe it to you now to start thinking.

Why was Ochi in Battle School in the first place?

Why would the teachers recruit a kid with zero charisma for a program designed to create military leaders? Good grades didn't mean jack shit when it came to getting along with your fellow soldiers, never mind getting kids to follow your command.

Maybe, he thought hazily, some of us are brought here precisely because we have no chance of success. There has to be a few losers to make the winners shine more brightly.

What a horrible role to be given. What a horrible place we have come to.

He felt a stab of sympathy, of empathy, for poor Ochi.

Lying back on his bed, Waya closed his eyes. He decided he wasn't going to go to dinner tonight after all. He didn't want to face all those _competent_ commanders.

- 0 - 0 -

He was having that dream again.

Waya was still a Tiger, and Wolf Army was destroying his army.

Aim carefully, he told himself as he pointed his gun at Isumi's chest. Chop off the head, and the body shall fall.

"Don't shoot," said Isumi from a million miles away. "I'll disappear if you do. And then what will you do?"

I'll become commander. I'll take your army.

"Then take it."

Isumi's eyes were changing, grey to yellow with pupils narrowed to black slits. The Wolves were gathering close now, watching Waya as Waya watched Isumi, as Waya's index finger hesitated on the trigger, frozen with regret for things that hadn't happened yet.

"Fire," Shindou ordered from somewhere. "Fire, or you'll never make commander."

"Fire," the Wolves jeered. "Fire or you'll never command us."

"Fire," Isumi warned him, "and you'll never see me again."

"Fire," said Ochi, and his was a new voice in the dream, "or I'll freeze you here forever."

Waya's gun arm wouldn't hold steady. I don't know what to do. I don't know whose order to follow.

The Wolves were closing in, and he knew he was going to lose again.

- 0 - 0 -

"Hey Waya! Why-uuuh weren't you at dinner last night? Huh? You listening to me?"

"Still frozen, eh?

"Poor dumb Waya can't believe his own soldier shot him in the face."

"Killed by a face shot, what a way to go."

"Betcha he liked it."

"You liking it, Why-uuuhhh? Huh, boy?"

"Goes down real smooth, ne?"

Waya ignored them until eventually they went away, if only because the breakfast line was calling to them. But now Waya couldn't get his own food. The wolves are merciless today, he caught himself thinking.

His usual table was empty this morning - his "friends" were all eating somewhere else. It was a bitter thing to realize he'd been abandoned. He'd been popular, once, back when he was a toon leader in Tiger Army. Now he wasn't.

"Hey," said Shindou, who was balancing a tray on one hand and eating a piece of toast with the other. "Where were you at dinner yesterday?"

"Slept through it," said Waya. It was more or less the truth. An image of Shindou's face from his dream, a face ugly with contempt, flashed across his mind. He shook his head a little. "You're not eating with Touya today?"

"I don't always have to eat with Touya."

No, on some days you take pity on me. "Usually you do."

"Not that I've never suggested this before, but we could all eat together, you know."

"I don't want to be labelled the Japanese group."

"I think we already are," Shindou sighed. But he sat down and slid his tray over without being asked so Waya could take a piece of toast. They still understood each other's signals well enough, even if they weren't exactly buddy-buddy anymore.

Waya didn't exactly resent Touya for being Shindou's friend. He just couldn't stand the guy. And to tell the truth, his own friendship with Shindou had never recovered from Waya becoming commander. They were equals now, but they were enemies too. They couldn't bounce ideas off each other the way they used to, couldn't talk about the game without fear of giving secrets away. And without the game, what kind of friends were they?

He doubted it was like this between Shindou and Touya. They had that dumb board game of theirs to talk about. He'd seen them huddled together over the damn thing often enough to know they were obsessed with it.

Okay, maybe he did resent Touya a little bit. And Shindou too, the ass.

"So, uh, I heard something about you getting nuked by your own soldier."

Waya choked on his dry toast. The next time someone brought him food he was going to demand condiments. "Did you really have to bring that up?"

"Of course! I heard it was 'the most epic-est battle in the history of Battle School.'"

Shindou did a pretty good impression of Ferret's commander.

"I know you're trying to make me feel better," Waya said, "but you are kind of lousy at it."

"Seriously, what happened with that soldier? He was new, right?"

"His name is Ochi." Waya thought it was important, somehow, to give the name. "Transferred from Condor yesterday morning, but I didn't find out until half an hour before my battle with Ferret. Somehow missed the note."

"Ah, the dreaded tiny piece of paper in the dark thing."

"Yeah. They should really do something about that."

"I'm sure they'll figure something out."

"Yeah, it would make sense, right?"

"Maybe a dinging noise when you open the door."

"Or a little flashing light."

"I'm sure they'll come up with something."

"Sure."

Waya took a bite of ham.

"So what was with the soldier, that Ochi kid, why did he fire on you?"

Waya chewed a bit, deciding how he wanted to answer that.

"He didn't mean to. He's not insubordinate, just incompetent." Then he paused, remembering how Ochi had nearly broken down on him yesterday after hearing that word. "I shouldn't call him that. He hates it."

"Incompetent?"

"Yeah. He never got trained properly. He can barely fly, never mind carry out maneuvers while the enemy is firing at him."

"Are you sure?" Shindou asked. "You've never seen him outside of that one battle, right? Maybe he's better than you think. It must have been stressful for him, being thrown into a frontline formation in a new army."

Clearly, Shindou knew more about the battle than he was letting on. But Waya knew a lot more than he was supposed to, too. "Yeah, trust me, he didn't learn anything in his launch group or his last army. He had issues with his commander. He's had issues his whole time here."

Shindou gave him a speculative look, obviously noticing something was fishy about Waya's data sources, but smart enough not to ask. And Waya was smart enough to get out of there before Shindou changed his mind.

"Thanks for the food, hey?" he said, standing up. "I've got to get ready for practice."

"You barely ate anything." Shindou looked up at him in surprise. "You got time, sit down."

"No, I don't want to keep stealing your breakfast."

Shindou stood up too and moved as if he was about to grab Waya's arm, then thought better of it. "You don't have to do everything by yourself, Waya, whatever the teachers want us to think. Maybe the commander that they're looking for has to be some lonely hero, but the rest of us can have friends."

Waya shook his head.

"Commanders used to have help from their seconds, remember?" Shindou persisted. "And it was fine. We worked well, the two of us."

Yeah, we worked so well we crushed Isumi and Wolf into the ground.

Shindou was watching him carefully. "We never held each other back."

"It's not like that anymore. They decided we have to go it alone."

"That doesn't mean it's the best way for everyone."

"It's a sign of weakness, needing help."

"No, it's not. It's not." Shindou's voice and eyes went strange, the way they did sometimes. "I used to...have a friend who played go, who couldn't place the stones himself. But he was brilliant, and he had so much to teach me. So I placed the stones for him, in all his games."

"Did he have a disability?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what was wrong with him?"

A wan smile. "Maybe he was just a bit incompetent at certain things."

- 0 - 0 -

Waya was making his way to the showers, where he could cool his head a bit. He had lied about not having any time before practice. Practice was still thirty minutes away.

It made him so mad when Shindou acted like the teachers. Like he was so experienced and _wise_. I'm talking about things you don't understand, Waya. Maybe you'd understand if you had a real childhood, Waya. Too bad you never did and never will.

Here's what's wrong with _you_, Shindou: you play a board game like it matters as much as the _real_ game; you talk about stars and planets as if you'll own them someday; you say things that sound like they come out of a storybook world, where every kid has some kind of grand destiny waiting for him.

And what did I get, after five years in Battle School? I got to fire a gun at my best friend and steal his army. An army that hates me now, almost as much as I hate myself.

I should have said goodbye to Isumi.

He was getting near the showers now. His route took him past one of the smaller bathrooms, where he saw a crowd of boys laughing and jostling for position as they peered inside. They were mostly from Condor, judging by the number of black and white uniforms. Their laughter had an ugly ring to it.

"What's going on here?" he asked loudly.

A few of the boys turned to look at him. Most, however, were too caught up in whatever was going on in the bathroom to pay any attention to him.

"We just watching Owchie," one of them said. As if that explained anything.

"He's one of our ex-teammates," someone else said.

"More like our ex-laughingstock."

"Poor Owchie, always gets the Owchies when he tries to do the Battle Room."

"Has to come in here to flush it out after."

"Oh, so that's what Owchie means." The boy scrunched up his face and mimed defecating into a toilet. He got a lot of laughs for that one.

Waya had heard enough. "Move it," he said.

That was when one of them looked a little closer at Waya's uniform and saw the commander's pin on his collar. Then he saw the insignia and the colours.

"You're the Wolf commander!" the kid said, like it was rocket science or something. "Hey, Owchie's new commander is here!"

The laughter grew exponentially.

"The losers band together!"

"Owchie and Wolfie!"

"Awwwoooooooo!"

"Move it," Waya said again, "before I lose my patience."

He didn't think it would work, but there must have been something in his voice or face this time that made them back away, still laughing, so he could pass.

Inside, there were even more Condor grunts crowding the small bathroom, with several of them banging on the stall farthest from the door. None of them had gone so far as to climb over the tall stall door, but it was probably only a matter of time.

Waya stood near the bathroom entrance and crossed his arms, waiting.

Eventually, they became aware of him. A boy in the back of the crowd nudged another boy, and the nudges were passed around until they were all looking at him.

Waya stared back.

"Lookie, all the Wolves are coming out to play," said one boy.

"Owchie, your commander here to save your sorry butt."

"Sorry sore butt."

"Sowwy!"

"Gotta be sore sitting on a toilet all day."

"It's 'cause Wolves do it like dogs."

"That's why cute widdle Owchie meets his big bad commander in the bathroom, yeah?"

"Ochi just wants a little love.'"

"Oh, so that's why he's always mouthing off! I get it now."

"Yeah, it's all psy-cho-lo-gic-al. Poor little rich boy is _tired_ of giving orders all the time! He wants to be _disciplined_."

Don't do anything that will invite retaliation, now or later, Waya told himself. Just wait them out. They don't hate Ochi enough to physically attack a commander without provocation. He's just annoying, not a threat to them.

It took a while, but someone eventually said, "This is dumb as stupid. We been in this bathroom fifteen, twenty minutes and Ochi still not coming out."

"We gonna rumble?" asked another, gesturing at Waya with his head. "Ten on one."

This drew a round of laughs. "Seriously, 'rumble'? No one says that."

"Yeah, we say 'ice.'"

"Okay okay." We gonna ice him?"

But the boy Waya had picked out as the ringleader shook his head. "We got practice soon. Let's go. This _is_ boring."

Waya stood aside and let them pass.

When they were all gone, he walked over to the last stall, knocked gently, and said, "Ochi?"

No reply.

"I'd leave you alone to sulk, except you'll probably get in trouble again if I don't escort you out."

The door opened.

"That's better. You okay?"

"Fine," said Ochi.

"What were you doing in there?"

"Hiding."

"From Condor or Wolf?"

Ochi's face was utterly expressionless. "Both."

"Smart man."

- 0 - 0 -

Waya ended up not taking that shower after all, but at least Ochi made it to practice in one piece.

Unfortunately, the kid was still a terrible soldier.

Toon A ignored Ochi, even as he haphazardly tried to do their drills. Everyone was ignoring Ochi. Waya wasn't happy with the situation-he would have to speak to his newly assigned Toon A leader-but for now he was just glad they weren't trying to kill the kid.

As he was dismissing his army at the end of practice, he made eye contact with Ochi. Stay, he said with a look.

Ochi stayed. If he was embarrassed at all about his display of emotion the day before, or the incident in the bathroom this morning, he wasn't showing it. He stared at Waya with a bored expression, a silent "So?" written across his face.

"First of all," said Waya, "did you manage to go to breakfast this morning?"

If Ochi was surprised by the question he didn't let it show. "Yeah. I promised Shorty my desserts for a month if he'd protect me during meals."

Shorty was the biggest, meanest soldier in Wolf. "So now no one is bothering you, but you'll be without cake for a month. And you're being shunned."

"I don't like dessert or people."

"I still have no idea how you got into Battle School with that attitude."

Ochi shrugged again. "I don't care whether people like me or not."

"No, I meant the not-liking-cake thing. The teachers usually don't admit students into the school who don't clear the cake requirement."

"What?"

"A joke," said Waya. "They have those where you come from?"

Ochi gave him a more-sour-than-usual look. He really did need some sugar in his life. "Is this why you asked me to stay? You needed someone to listen to your bad jokes?"

"Maybe I wanted to punish you a little for shooting me."

"It's working. Why are you in such a good mood?"

"Practice went well. It usually doesn't, but today it did, somehow, even though we lost yesterday," said Waya, a bit surprised to realize that he _was_ in a better mood.

"You were more like a commander today," Ochi said, eyes assessing Waya's reaction. "You seemed a lot less wound up than yesterday."

"Yeah," said Waya. "Huh."

He'd been angry after breakfast - at Shindou, at Ochi, at the whole damn school - but, like yesterday after the battle, the anger had turned cold. And apparently that kind of anger sharpened his thinking, hardened his bearing and voice, made him into a better commander.

Useful to know.

"Is that all?" asked Ochi. "Can I go?"

Even Ochi couldn't make him see red right now. After all, it was Ochi who'd helped him understand himself.

"I just wanted to make sure no one in Wolf tried to beat you up," Waya told him honestly.

"They've had time to cool down. You took me out of there when they really wanted to hurt me."

"Sure did." And you're welcome.

"You should have left me there. 'To form an army that loves itself, create an enemy it hates,'" Ochi quoted from one of their textbooks. Waya thought it was maybe something a Polemarch said once.

"I'd rather form an army that loves itself because it loves itself," he replied.

"You're an idiot."

"I know. But I don't punish honest mistakes."

"A mistake that cost you a battle."

"We were probably going to lose anyway," Waya said easily, admitting it aloud for the first time."

"You noticed, then," Ochi sniffed.

"You noticed right away."

"I'm pretty good at that."

"Yeah. That's why I want your help. I want you watching the battles, and giving me advice." The idea was still forming in Waya's head as he said the words, but it felt right. He could already see the possibilities, the bright pathways forming in his future from this single move. "You'll learn a lot, and I'll learn with you."

Ochi actually reeled back a little, which was just comical in zero grav. "Pardon?"

"You're smart, your grades are good, you can read a situation quickly. It would be a waste of talent not to use you. And..." here he hesitated, before leaping, "I want you to analyze me as a commander. You understand what power is supposed to look like, I know you do. Help me figure out this commander thing."

"You're asking _me_?" Ochi didn't bother trying to hide his shock. "I insulted you five seconds after I met you. I shot you in the _face_."

"Yeah, you have to stop doing that."

"It'll look bad. The commander asking a new recruit for advice, it just won't fly." Ochi kept reaching for counter-arguments, but Waya could tell he was coming around to the idea.

"We won't tell anyone," Waya said breezily. "At least not until you get some respect back."

"How will you keep it a secret during battle?"

"We'll work something out."

"And outside of battle? You can't always hold me back after practice, it'll look suspicious."

"Yes, I can." Waya's brain was working furiously. "I can because you need extra one-on-one lessons. You are going to learn to fly, and you are going to learn to shoot, and you are going to learn it from one of the best. I'll work with you for as long as it takes, you lucky squirt, until you're good enough that the rest of my army will treat you like a human being."

Ochi's mouth was open, but for once he wasn't talking. He was...there was something in his expression, something vulnerable and young that told Waya he was making the right decision.

You were right, Shindou. Some of us need help, and some of us need to _give_ help. It's not a weakness, because it makes us stronger.

"That's why you came to Wolf, right?" Waya said gently. "So you could become a good soldier?"

It took a moment, but Ochi croaked out a shaky "Yes, sir."

"Good. Let's get started."

They practiced until Ochi didn't have the energy to mouth off anymore and Waya thought his voice was going to give out from all the sage advice he was making up on the spot. The practiced until Ochi could _finally_ hit a very slowly moving target from twenty meters away, as long as someone was steadying his gun arm.

Waya was dead tired when he crept into bed that night, but the look on Ochi's face was worth it.

And, for the first time, the wolves were kind to him in his dreams.

- 0 - 0 -

_You need to capture the upper right star._

"Hai, _hai_," Waya subvocalized, knowing the sensitive earpiece would pick up his voice, sarcasm and all. "I'm not stupid, you know."

_Could have fooled me._

"Zee and Wilbee!" Waya yelled in Common. "Send your toons to capture that upper right star! Formations four and seven, watch out for wall sliders, have one man on lookout slash cover fire like we practiced."

Toons C and D took off.

_The earpiece is working better today_, Ochi admitted. _I'm impressed you got the volume controls to discriminate between Japanese and Common. It's nice to not have my ears shouted off. Not bad for something cobbled together out of desk parts._

Ochi really needed to cut down on the idle chatter during battle. "Concentrate on your formation, oomay, you still fly like a brick."

A few minutes later, Ochi's voice came back and said, in its usual deadpan way, _I do not fly like a brick. I fly like a clumsily thrown brick._

"Nice, you're finally developing a sense of humour but please shut up and go shoot things."

Ochi did shut up, and started shooting things - badly, but not as badly as before.

Waya hung back and watched his army, noting who was flying well, which toons needed to work on their teamwork, which tactics were effective and which were ineffective. He was fairly pleased with what he saw. Even if Wolf didn't win, the number of disabled or frozen Condor bodies floating around was nothing to be ashamed of.

He couldn't help but think think that Isumi would approve of what he'd done with his army.

Maybe one day Waya would tell him all about it.

He sent out his last four reserve soldiers, one from each toon, before throwing himself into the battle alongside them.

"Let's give 'em the old Wolf calling card, eh?" he grinned at his soldiers.

"Aww, do we have to, boss?" But they were grinning back.

"Yes."

They took a deep breath.

"AWWWOOOOOO!"

-End-

Author's notes:

This is a story I've been trying to write for seven years, ever since I completed "Hikaru's Game" in 2005. Whenever I tried to think about how I could write about Waya in Wolf Army - and by extension something about Waya's guilt about beating Isumi - it always ended up being a plotless angstfest of zzzzz. I knew I needed some kind of external conflict, probably in the form of a Wolf soldier or two butting heads with Waya, but I didn't want to create an OC just for that purpose.

And then I thought of using Ochi! And boy did Ochi have a lot of issues with Waya, and Battle School in general. Ochi is kind of fun to write because he has no social skills. For a while I thought of "Wolf Pack" as "that Ochi story," though by the end of the writing process it was back to "that Waya story" in my head.

As I was writing, it occurred to me that if _Ender's Game_ and "Hikaru's Game" are all about the hero's journey (even if Graff totally rigged up Ender's journey), _Ender's Shadow_ and "Wolf Pack" are all about the people who don't get to be the hero but who are heroic in their own way. The former two operate on the level of myth, so you have things like the Fantasy Game and Sai and lots of Vaguely Improbable Happenings - while the latter two operate on the level of the mundane, so you have things like Bean crawling through air ducts and Waya choking on dry toast and lots of Overexplaining of Improbable Happenings (and retconning, in the case of _Ender's Shadow_).

I like the tragic, heroic myth that _Ender's Game_ treats us to, but I can't help but think _Ender's Shadow_ has better lessons for us non-heroes. Cooperation is better than competition, yeah? I think my favourite line from _Ender's Shadow_ (a book I don't actually enjoy that much, to tell the truth) comes from Graff, who says to Bean after the final battle: "I think perhaps you pulled each other across the finish line." It's a bit of a retcon of _Ender's Game_, but I'm okay with that one.

These are the longest author's notes in the world. Thank you for reading!


	3. Life and Death Problems

Author's Notes:

Originally, "Life and Death Problems" was listed on ffnet separately from "Hikaru's Game." Then I wrote "Wolf Pack" and I decided to put all the fics from the "Hikaru's Game" universe together. Sorry for any confusion!

* * *

**Life and Death Problems  
**

Touya turned on his desk and found a life and death problem waiting for him.

The goban grid was drawn perfectly: lines straight, stars uniform. Black and white circles for the stones, scaled to the correct size. When he hovered his finger over the screen a black stone appeared under his fingertip. Someone had put effort into this.

He scrolled down to the bottom of the message-because the whole thing was imbedded in a message, oddly-and found the sender's signature. He didn't recognize the name, but that didn't mean anything. There were lots of kids at Battle School who knew how to change their user names. He should know; he was one of them.

He scrolled back up. It was black's turn, and there was only one path to life.

Touya chose wrong. A few turns later, white had devoured most of the black stones. PLAY AGAIN? his desk asked him. He touched the screen, and the board returned to the way it had been when he'd turned on his desk.

This time he chose the correct sequence of moves. Black lived, white died, and then the entire board disappeared unceremoniously from his screen. The whole message was gone, in fact. He checked the log, but there was no trace of it.

How odd. He _felt _odd, in fact, like deja vu. The pattern he'd laid out felt familiar. But the name on the message didn't feel familiar at all.

He went to bed, thinking _Who the heck is Sai?_

- 0 - 0 -

"Shindou," he asked that evening, during their usual shidougo session, "did you send me a message yesterday?"

"Huh? You mean on my desk?"

Touya often found himself wondering how on earth Shindou had ever gotten into Battle School. "Of course through your desk. How else would you send a message? Through the post?"

"Why would I bother sending you a message when I see you all the time? I hardly even touch my desk. I'm terrible at using it."

Touya could believe that. "So you didn't send me a message."

Shindou rolled his eyes. "When you say things like that I can't believe you ever made it into Battle School. Checkmate."

"Oh, shut up. And there's no such thing as checkmate."

- 0 - 0 -

It took a few days before another message came, During that time Touya fought a battle and won it and watched his soldiers celebrate and drilled their mistakes out of them and was generally very busy. He'd nearly forgotten about Sai until he opened his desk one morning and was faced with life and death again.

It was a harder problem, but the correct choice was obvious, somehow. The stones practically played themselves. Touya was sure he'd played this game before. He'd been black, but white...who was white?

He watched the stones disappear again, and wondered.

- 0 - 0 -

"What do you want?" Waya asked suspiciously.

On a normal day Touya wouldn't even _try _to talk to this one. But Shindou's friend was supposed to be pretty handy with computers, and Sai was a Japanese name, so...

"Have you, by any chance, been sending me messages?"

Waya gave him a look that said _That is a very stupid question_. Then he said aloud, "That is a very stupid question."

"I know."

"Then why are you asking me?"

"Someone named Sai keeps sending me...strange messages."

"And you think it might be me because...?"

"Shindou says it's not him," Touya said, trying not to sound weak, "and I can't think who else it might be."

Waya gave him another of those looks.

"You need more friends," he said gruffly.

- 0 - 0 -

Touya swiped his hands over the desk in frustration, sending a black circle scudding across the screen. The messages were coming more often now, and the problems were getting more and more difficult. Yet he could do them all.

PLAY AGAIN?

He'd tried tracing the sender; his queries returned nothing. Maybe it was the teachers playing tricks on him, trying to make him go crazy. But he didn't think so.

PLAY AGAIN?

He'd tried so many times, played the wrong moves again and again, hoping something different would happen. He could solve life and death problems, but he couldn't solve anything.

PLAY AGAIN?

PLAY AGAIN?

PLAY AGAIN?

Eventually, hands trembling, he touched the board here, and there, and there, leading black to escape and white to death.

The stones disappeared without a trace.

- 0 - 0 -

"You're not supposed to _beat _me_. _This is shidougo. You're supposed to _learn _from me," Shindou told him in exasperation.

"Sometimes I get tired of being a student," Touya replied. But what he meant was, I get tired of being _your _student.

"Even if we play a match, and I let you place four stones, I'll still be teaching you."

"I know."

Shindou understood what was unsaid. "If you don't want to do this, then don't."

Touya left, hand unplayed.

- 0 - 0 -

A battle. The uncluttered mess of combat. Muscles burning and throat raw, exhaustion and elation in equal measure.

Attack there, now, like this. He hardly had to think, his body just _knew. _

"Under and around!" he screamed to his toon leaders. He led them on a dizzying path between the artificial stars, letting his sense of gravity reorient over and over as they flew toward the enemy, always toward the enemy.

He made his men push off from one another in a formation they'd practiced a hundred times, watched them move in concert exactly as he wanted, smooth and warrior-like.

At a glance he counted the enemy's remaining soldiers. Calculated the losses he'd accepted in exchange for territory gained. Stars in his hand, victory at his fingertips.

This is a fight I can understand, he told himself as his heart pounded out its strange battle hymn. This is a fight where nothing is lost in winning.

- 0 - 0 -

When he returned to his room, the next life and death problem was waiting for him.

He shut off his desk.

- 0 - 0 -

"Are you all right, Touya?" one of his toon leaders asked. "You've been...tense lately."

"I'm fine."

The other boy gave him a doubtful look. Touya ignored him and bent his head over the diagram they'd been looking at. They were using his toon leader's desk, of course.

"You were too forceful here," Touya said. "You should have waited for Toon B's support."

His toon leader nodded unhappily.

"And during mop-up your men got overconfident. Ahmad shouldn't have been disabled. I want you to run a tighter ship."

"Yes, sir."

Touya gentled his voice. "But it was a well-played game, nonetheless."

"Really?" the boy said, then caught himself. "I mean, thank you, sir."

His smile was so shy, _young _even, that Touya felt a startling sense of vertigo. He'd seen this scene before, he'd been a part of it, he knew. But he'd been sitting on the other side of it.

_It was well-played, Akira._

A pang of remembrance, so sudden it hurt.

"Excuse me," he said, standing up, "I need to go check something."

- 0 - 0 -

He turned on his desk for the first time in days.

And thought: of course I know this game. I know all these games.

White was stronger than him. Far stronger. Yet his hands were gentle and kind.

Impossible, of course. It couldn't be him.

But Akira remembered the music of the wind chime as the paper tail spun, the breath of wind wafting through the verandah door, the soft clink of the stones and the warm voice of-

"Father," he whispered.

- 0 - 0 -

Waya stopped him in the corridor.

"I remember now, back when I was in Tiger Army, Shindou used to talk in his sleep. And once or twice...I'm not sure, you know, but I think he said 'Sai.' I didn't know that it meant anything at the time, but..."

"Thank you," said Touya.

But he already knew. Of course it was Shindou. It was always Shindou.

- 0 - 0 -

Shindou, whose eyes were guarded now. Who was still waiting for him, at their table with Touya's goban in front of him, where he always waited.

"How could I be sending you games from your father?" he demanded, after Touya explained. "_Why _would I be sending you games from your father?"

"I don't know. But you're the only one on this battle station with a connection to my father, and to his go."

"You don't think it's the teachers? Testing you, playing mental tricks on you? You've always hated that."

Touya shook his head.

"The messages have all been signed."

"With my name? That doesn't mean anything."

"Not your name. They've all been signed 'Sai.'"

Shindou's eyes snapped upward, met Touya's in disbelief and fear and a wild hope that made him look painfully young.

When he finally managed to speak, it was in a voice low and hoarse with grief. "Don't say that name. Not here."

"Okay."

Shindou lowered his head until their foreheads were practically touching, and Touya could feel how shaky his breaths had become.

"This is crazy," he finally said. "How can it be him?"

"Who?" asked Touya, but when Shindou spoke it was as if he hadn't heard.

"I wasn't lying when I said it wasn't me who sent those messages. But whether it was the teachers or...something else, it was connected to me. That's how much I can tell you, without...without me being like this."

Then Shindou looked up, eyes still haunted. "Will you show me?" "The games?"

Touya nodded, pulled away from Shindou and placed his desk on the table between them. But the screen was blank. He checked the message log: nothing. Flabbergasted, he said, "How can that be? I didn't turn it off, it was here when I left my room!"

"So there's nothing to show me."

"No, no, it was like this," Touya said, picking up the stones-the real stones- and placing them on the goban on the table, recreating the last problem Sai had sent him. "I remember my father told me black could escape without a ko battle. I couldn't figure out how to do it, and I lost that fight."

Shindou gave the board a surprised look. "This is really difficult."

"When I was six, yes. Not anymore. I know how to solve it," Touya said, and did just that.

Shindou watched silently as black devoured white. As Touya placed the last stone he could almost feel the summer wind ruffling his hair, hear the soft padding of his mother's slippered feet just beyond the wooden walls. But when he opened his eyes he saw only the smooth metal lines of the Battle School- and Shindou, whose face still wore that unreadable expression.

"The messages have been coming for weeks now. There'll be more," Touya told him, feeling desperate now.

"No, there won't." Shindou leaned back, eyes closed.

"I'm not lying," Touya whispered.

"I know. But you don't understand. Those games, the life and death problems your father gave you...it was a message to me, from your old teacher to your new one."

"You think it was my father who sent them?"

"Not exactly. Maybe there was a ghost in the computer system," Shindou suggested, in that maddening way of his. "But I understand what the messages were saying. You don't need a teacher anymore."

Touya felt a stab of fear. "No. It was too soon when I lost my father. It's too soon for me to lose you too."

"Teachers always leave," Shindou said, "when they think you've learned everything they can teach you."

"I haven't learned enough. I'm not ready."

"I wasn't ready when my...teacher left me. But I learned. In the end, the best teacher is the game."

"The enemy is the best teacher, the only teacher, that's what the teachers say," Touya said, head bowed. He was talking about a different set of teachers now. "Have you decided they're right? The only path to the Hand of God is alone?"

Shindou's hand crept over to his own, until their fingertips were almost touching. "I never said that. But...from now on, don't think of me as your teacher. Or your enemy either." His voice became determined, the way it did in the Battle Room. "I'm your rival, and you're mine. And you'll never catch me unless you shut up and play."

When Touya looked up, he saw something almost hopeful beneath the seriousness in Shindou's eyes. It eased the tight feeling in his chest, the sense of something passing and something new and harder beginning. He was not afraid anymore. Not when he could still hear the wind chime striking its gentle notes, feel the warm strength of his father's hand.

He took in a deep breath. "You're a terrible teacher anyway."

"I take it that means you accept my challenge."

"I won't go easy on you."

"That's my line, young grasshopper."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means 'how many stones are you going to place?'"

"Three," said Touya Akira, and faced his rival head-on.

- End -


End file.
